Minuets with Bombadil
by Bar Sira
Summary: What a difference one word can make…


**Author's note: **As my regular readers know, I have made it a hobby of late to take passages I find on Harry Potter stories that have one crucial word misspelled or misused, and then write stories in which these malapropisms are taken literally. Now, we all know that such passages are not confined to the Harry Potter subcategory; hence, the present collection of NCIS tales. As in the original "Minuets", the attributions may or may not be verifiable when you read this, since the authors in question may choose to correct their syntax, change their pen names, and/or delete their stories; still, you have my word that these passages have all really appeared in this subcategory.

A word about technique. Obviously, none of these vignettes actually reflect the intentions of the authors quoted, and in many cases the whole context of the passage has been radically altered. However, I have made it an ironclad rule that any pronoun will refer to the same person or thing in the Minuet as in the original story, and any direct quote will be attributed to the same character. (And of course this applies to OCs and historical figures as well as to canon characters.)

**Disclaimer: **_The Lord of the Rings_ belongs to J. R. R. Tolkien; the stories quoted belong to the authors named; the cover image is by Filippo Baratti; various other allusions to works and persons not my own abound. The stories themselves, however, are strictly my own work.

**Other _Minuets_ collections:** If you enjoy these tales, you may also wish to look into "Minuets in Aeolian Mode" (Percy Jackson and the Olympians), "Minuets Assemble!" (Avengers [Movies]), "Minuets by Brain Matter" (NCIS), "Minuets by John Williams" (Star Wars), and "Minuets by Guitar Villain" (Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir) – and, of course, the Harry Potter series that started it all, "Minuets in B Minor". All are currently available on my profile.

* * *

_"She was lost in despair and a bleeding heart in those toucher pits." _–photomonkee923, "Remember"

As the captive Elf-wife languished in the concealed pit, nursing her inconsolable grief, she heard footsteps passing nearby; they stopped just a few hundred yards away, and, after a moment's pause, she heard a voice muttering in the Common Tongue about being unable to use a ring. For the faintest of moments, hope fluttered in her breast; then immemorial despair stifled it again. What good was there in hoping? Whoever it was who was passing, he presumably wasn't an Elf, and no Man could hear her clap or cry out at that distance. And she knew he wouldn't be coming any closer…

Yes, there the footsteps went, eastward down the path toward Cirith Ungol. Once again, she had come within a toucher of finding rescue, only to have it slip from her at the last moment. So it would ever be, so long as she remained imprisoned in this network of enchanted excavations; that was, after all, why Gorthaur called them his Toucher Pits.

* * *

_"As the sunlight scattered in a thousand points of light from the gem[-]studied mail of Bilbo's gift, Aragorn's first reaction was to gasp and then to laugh softly." _–Elwen Of The Hidden Valley, "The Hammer and the Anvil"

"And this, Master Baggins, is our archæological laboratory," said Elrond, leading Bilbo into a room that glistened with a dozen different colours of refracted light. "You must forgive the glare; most of our great scholars choose to transform themselves into the hardest gemstones, in order that their powers of concentration may be likewise firm and rigid. Just now, I believe, they are busy studying the coats of mail unearthed from the recent digs in Estolad, in the hopes of better assessing the level of smithing skill among the People of Haleth in the Second Age."

"Coats of mail, eh?" said Bilbo, and glanced around. "They wouldn't have a small one they would spare, by any chance, would they? I gather my young cousin's supposed to be going off and fighting Orcs ere long; surely he could use it…"

"Take the one by the pillar," said an emerald at the far end of the room. "It's probably spurious, anyhow."

* * *

_"He took a deep breath and then looked to Aragon."_ –Michael Weyer, "Reforging the Fellowship"

"A grim country, is it not, Monsieur?" said his guide. "Yet that is where you must go, if indeed you have business in Saragossa. A fine city, if I may say so; I have been there once myself, when Prince Juan married the Duke of Bar's daughter some years ago, and found it most enjoyable."

Boromir, gazing out across the arid landscape, barely heard him. His mind was fixed on the city, invisible beyond the southern horizon, in whose university, it was rumoured, two old men in blue robes jointly held the honoured and dreaded Chair of Magic. When he had first awakened, alive and whole, in the Sixth Age of the world, he had suspected that the _Ithryn Luin_, those renegade companions of Gandalf and Saruman, were somehow behind it, and had spent the past three months trying to determine their present dwelling; now, at length, he was convinced that it was in the chief city of the land before him that they were to be found – and find them, and have some explanation, he meant to do, or know the reason why.

He thanked the guide and paid him his fee; then he struck the ground with his staff, and set off down the mountain path that led to the Kingdom of Aragon.

* * *

_"A whip-or-will sounded its signature song and received an answering call from the opposite side of the little knoll." _–Fredemmet, "Cuthenin"

"Listen, Mr. Frodo!" said Sam. "You know what that is, don't you? Sounds mighty nearby, too."

"Yes, it does," Frodo agreed, and glanced around. "In fact, if I'm not mistaken… yes, there it is, over in the elm."

Sure enough, there was a heavy leather scourge wrapped around one of the lower limbs of the tree; as the hobbits watched, it let out the familiar three notes and shifted into its alternate form of a rolled-up legal document sealed in red wax. Sam sighed, and shook his head. "Now, isn't that a marvel?" he said. "I don't reckon I've ever seen a whip-or-will in the Shire so early in the year."

"Nor have I," said Frodo, "nor has anyone, that I ever heard. Uncle Dinodas did once speak of seeing a switch-or-civic-charter in Buckland in the middle of March – but he has a tendency to embroider the facts a bit, I've found."


End file.
